1. Technical Field
Various embodiments relate to a semiconductor apparatus, and more particularly, to a semiconductor system including a master device and a slave device.
2. Related Art
Semiconductor systems often include a master device and a slave device. The master device may operate the slave device by providing control signals to the slave device. The slave device may store information received from the master device or output stored information under the control of the master device. The information may be data.
Referring to FIG. 1, a block diagram representation of a prior art semiconductor system 10 is shown. The semiconductor system 10 includes a master device 11 and a slave device 12. The master device 11 may transmit a plurality of signals to the slave device 12. The master device 11 may provide a command signal CMD, an address signal ADD, and a clock signal CLK to the slave device 12. The master device 11 may transmit data DQ0-DQn to be stored at the slave device 12 and may receive data DQ0-DQn from the slave device 12.
The data DQ0-DQn may be transmitted via a plurality of data buses that communicatively couple the master device 11 to the slave device 12. The slave device 12 includes a plurality of pads and receiver circuits, where each pad and receiver circuit is communicatively coupled to an associated one of the plurality of data buses. The slave device 12 may receive data DQ0-DQn transmitted via the plurality of data buses at the pads and receiver circuits in synchronization with the clock signal CLK. In many cases, when the data DQ0-DQn is transmitted from the master device 11 via the data buses at substantially the same time, the slave device 12 may not receive the data at substantially the same time. This may be due to a number of different circumstances, such as for example, a skew associated with the data buses, process variations associated with of the pads or process variations associated with the receiver circuits.